


Skins

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s06e08 Rain King, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They could be nice, she thinks. It would be so easy. It would be so hard. But they could handle it, she thinks. They’ve been through the unimaginable together already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skins

When she gets back from the vending machine Mulder has unfolded the cot the hotel had provided them. 

“Aunt Trixie’s Fixins not agreeing with you?” he asks, pointing to the ginger ale in her hand. 

“I’ll take the cot,” she offers, popping the tab. 

“Don’t be silly.”

“Mulder, that thing’s more unstable than you are. It looks like it’ll barely hold me, let alone--”

“A top-notch male specimen in the peak of his physical condition?” he tries, loosening his tie.

“Ha, ha.”

“And really, I’m taking it.”

“Suit yourself.” She slumps onto the bed and grabs the TV Guide from the bedside table. 

“Already tried it. We only get three channels and none of them come in very well.”

She sighs. “Maybe someone’s trying to tell us something.”

“Holman Hart, you mean?”

“I meant more like my grandmother.” Her voice goes up into a high, thready register as she assumes the vocality of her mother’s late mother. _“You watch that television set much longer, Dana, and you’ll get square eyes.”_

Mulder grins. “You know, I’ve gotten so used to calling you Scully that sometimes I forget you have a first name.”

She makes a face and hopes she isn’t turning as red as she feels. “Glad to see that Oxford education isn’t going to waste.”

He smirks and flops down onto the cot. Almost instantly the flimsy springs give way and half of the makeshift bed collapses to the floor, making him utter expletives as his feet are thrown up above his knees.

“Are you okay?” She is instantly on the floor beside him. 

“No harm, no foul, no bruise.” His tone is dismissive but he’s not waving her away. They’ve been closer than ever since Antarctica. Sometimes it almost seems like he wants to pull her to him, like he had in the hallway of his apartment building. She puts a hand on her shoulder to steady him, to steady herself. She feels very heady all of a sudden. 

“I should probably check with the front desk to see if they have another one,” she says, trying to ignore his breath so close to her cheek.

“I can do it,” he says, pushing himself up. 

“No, I’ll go.” Snapping out of it, she rushes to her feet and snatches the hotel key off the nightstand. “Be right back.”

She is out the door before she catch a glimpse of his face. She’s afraid that if she sees him her resolve will crumble. And after everything, she wants nothing more than that. But it’s complicated. The air outside is cool and she takes in big gulps as she walks along the outside of the motel to the front office.

“Back again?” the woman behind the desk asks, her bulbous earrings bobbing as she speaks.

“The cot you brought to my room. It, ah, it broke, and I’d like a new one, please.”

“Oh my! Those things aren’t really cut out for rigorous activity, I’m afraid,” the woman says like she’s sharing a secret.

“Oh, no! We weren’t--” Scully feels the color rising in her cheeks for the second time in as many minutes. She struggles to regain control of the situation. “My partner just sat down on it and the springs collapsed and the mattress fell through.”

“Well that’s the last one we had, I’m afraid.” She doesn’t look afraid at all, Scully thinks with annoyance. “I’ve been telling Earl he needs to get that thing repaired for years, but we don’t get many folks coming through here and all our other rooms are booked.”

Scully sighs. “Thanks.”

She treks back down the walkway and when she opens the door, Mulder is hanging his dress shirt on a hanger in the small closet by the bathroom. 

“Just slipping into something more comfortable,” he explains.

She winces. “They’re out of cots.”

He nods. “That’s okay. I’ll take the floor.”

“Mulder, don’t be absurd.” Her voice adopts its familiar cadence of disbelief.

“Well you’re not sleeping on the floor.”

She huffs. “Fine, then we’ll both sleep in the bed.”

“Fine.”

“Okay then.” She straightens her posture, equally excited and embarrassed at how quickly he agreed.

“I’ll change in here,” he says, grabbing a handful of clothes from his suitcase and heading into the bathroom. 

She makes quick work of her own pajamas, the simple black set she’d brought with her quickly replacing her sharp suit, which she hangs in the closet beside his jacket and shirt. She looks at them hanging side by side, their skins that separate them from the outside world, from each other. She reaches up and pulls a red hair from the shoulder of his jacket. 

“Missing your shoulder pads?” he asks, popping out of the bathroom suddenly, clad in flannel sweatpants and a gray tee. 

“Hardly.”

“Promise you’ll keep your hands to yourself, Scully?”

“Mulder.” She chuckles, grabbing her book from her suitcase, which gives him pause.

“You’re not one of those people who reads in bed while the other person tries to sleep, are you?” he asks, a smirk dancing on his upper lip.

She narrows her eyes at him and the bag of sunflower seeds sitting atop his suitcase.. “I am if you’re a person who eats in bed.”

He shakes the half-full bag at her and puts it down on the table next to the TV.

“Okay then. Truce.” She puts her book away and moves to pull back the covers.

“I’ll sleep on this side.” He is behind her suddenly, stalling the pull of her hand against the scratchy hotel comforter.

“This is my side,” she argues, not turning around, knowing that if she does their faces will be just inches apart. 

“I want to be between you and the door,” he says quietly. “In case anything happens.”

“Oh.” Gratitude and longing and sadness well up in her in one ugly wave and she expertly rides it out. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gives her room to pass to the other side of the bed and they crawl in, turning out the lights on the way down. 

“Mulder, I appreciate it but I don’t need your chivalry,” she says into the darkness, once they’ve both settled, she on her side facing the wall and he on his back. 

“I know you don’t. But I’d like to offer it anyway.” He sounds impossibly young this way, beside her in bed in a hotel in Kansas. 

“Okay,” she says quietly. It is okay.

X

She has always been a morning person, but something today is making it difficult to get up, to open her eyes, to pry herself from the warmth of the bed. She realizes--with a mix of horror and utter bliss--that the reason she’s so comfortable is that she’s snuggled against Mulder. 

She stiffens for a moment, but then realizes he is still sleeping, and she doesn’t want to wake him. Her head is tucked under his chin, his soft sleepy sighs landing in her hair. One strong arm holds her body against his and her own arms are tucked against him, one draped over his chest. She lightly scratches the soft material of his t-shirt with her fingernails. It’s nice.

They could be nice, she thinks. It would be so easy. It would be so hard. But they could handle it, she thinks. They’ve been through the unimaginable together already. 

Beneath her, he stirs and his lips open and close once in a way that she finds unreasonably adorable. Moving of its own volition, her hand rises to brush a piece of hair off his forehead. Then, her alarm clock blares and she unceremoniously disentangles herself from him, shooting out of bed to turn it off. Under the sheets, Mulder rolls over onto his stomach. 

Scully smoothes a hand over her face and chuckles. Had they really been… snuggling? She’s not sure of anything anymore, only the fact that she wants to be near him all the time, everywhere, in any way she can. Some time long ago, after Philadelphia and before Antarctica, she’d accepted the fact that they were cosmically destined for each other in some twisted, maniacal way--romantically, platonically, or somewhere in between--and she’s felt life push them closer and closer together since the day they met in that office in the basement. 

“Five more minutes,” Mulder groans, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“I’ll take a shower first,” she says softly, her voice more thready than she means for it to be.

He turns to peek up at her, his hair sticking up off his head, making him look impossibly young. “Thanks,” he says. He smiles and burrows back under the blankets.

She realizes then that she wants this, this exact moment, every day for the rest of her life. That she wants weekends with Mulder and bank holidays with Mulder and stupid fights over whose turn it is to load the dishwasher. She wants pillow talk and dirty talk and she knows it’ll take time, everything’s always taken so much time with them--except, she supposes, learning to trust one another. What some people struggle with for their entire relationship, she and Mulder had managed to perfect, mostly, in under six months. But she knows that no matter how long it takes, it’s the only thing she wants. He’s the only one she wants. 

She pulls a small towel from the rack by the bathroom and hears Mulder sigh in his sleep. And she realizes, much to her embarrassment, that she can’t stop smiling.


End file.
